Infrared vs. Traditional Sauna: Which One Is Right for You?

If you’ve been shopping for a home sauna, you’ve probably run into the same fork in the road pretty quickly: infrared or traditional? Both deliver a real sweat and real benefits, but they get you there in very different ways — and the right choice comes down to how you actually want to use it.

How a traditional sauna works

A traditional (Finnish) sauna heats the air around you using a wood or electric stove topped with stones. Cabins typically run 70–90°C (158–194°F), and it’s dry heat until you ladle water over the hot stones for a burst of löyly — the soft wave of steam that’s central to the whole ritual. Sessions tend to be shorter and more intense, usually 10 to 20 minutes with cool-downs in between. Most home traditional saunas run on a hardwired electric heater in the 6–9 kW range and take 30 to 45 minutes to reach temperature. Prefer it outdoors? Our outdoor traditional saunas bring the same ritual to the backyard.

How an infrared sauna works

An infrared sauna skips heating the room altogether. Panels emit infrared energy that warms your body directly, so the air stays a gentler 45–60°C (113–140°F) while you still work up a deep, restorative sweat — just over a longer, calmer session. Infrared cabins are quick to warm up (10 to 15 minutes), run on a standard household outlet at around 2.4 kW, and cost less to run per session since you’re heating a person rather than a room.

Neither is “better” — they suit different people

Choose traditional if you want the classic high-heat ritual, löyly steam, and don’t mind a slightly higher upfront electrical requirement (a qualified electrician needs to wire in the heater). Choose infrared if you want a gentler daily habit, faster warm-up, and the simplicity of plugging into an ordinary socket — no electrical work required.

What’s actually backed by research

The strongest sauna research comes out of Finland’s long-running Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease study, which followed more than 2,300 middle-aged men for around 20 years. Frequent sauna bathers (4–7 sessions a week) showed meaningfully lower rates of fatal heart disease and dementia compared to those who used a sauna once a week. That data was gathered in traditional saunas specifically — infrared research is newer, but shares the same underlying idea: regular heat exposure works your cardiovascular system the way moderate exercise does, and most people find 2–3 sessions a week is enough to start feeling the benefits, with consistency mattering more than intensity.

Pairing heat with cold

A lot of regular sauna users round out the routine with a cold plunge — moving straight from a hot session into cold water and back again. The heat-cold contrast is its own ritual (sometimes called contrast therapy), popular for how sharply it wakes you up and for the recovery benefits some bathers swear by after a hot sauna session. If you’re building out a wellness space rather than just a sauna, it’s worth considering both together.

The wood matters more than people expect

Whichever heat style you choose, what’s lining the cabin plays a big role over the sauna’s lifetime. Two solid options: thermally modified aspen (Thermo-Aspen), which is baked rather than chemically treated at 180–215°C in an oxygen-free kiln, giving it a rich caramel tone throughout, strong resistance to warping through thousands of heat-cool cycles, and a mild, neutral scent. Cedar, which we use in our Visscher saunas, is the more traditional choice — prized for its distinctive aroma and warm, classic look, and a favourite for anyone who wants that unmistakable cedar smell as part of the ritual. It really comes down to whether you want a quieter, neutral-scented cabin or the fragrant, old-world character cedar brings.